The Trouble with Suicide (Haidt's After Babel)

The use of suicide and self-harm trends by Haidt is problematic and needs clarification.

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In The Teen Mental Illness Epidemic Began Around 2012, Haidt appeals to suicide and self-harm trends to prove there is a mental health crisis among adolescents:

But if Phillips and Friedman were correct that “the kids are alright” and the appearance of an epidemic is an illusion based on Gen Z’s “more honest relationship with their mental health,” then we would not see any change in objective measures of mental health, such as hospitalizations for self-harm, or deaths by suicide. But in fact, we do see such changes, and the timing and magnitude of them generally match the changes in self-reported mental health problems.

Most of us can agree, I hope, that the doubling of adolescent suicide 2007-2017 and the subsequent persistence of high rates constitutes a crisis. There are, however, two problems with how Haidt uses this argument.

Why did Suicide Increase?

If Haidt must rely on the suicide rise to prove there is a crisis then to explain the causes of the crisis he must explain the suicide rise itself. And yet Haidt has so far offered no explanation of the suicide rise nor given any indication that he intends to do so.

Perhaps Haidt views the suicide rise as a mere consequence of the depression rise and expects it to decline if depression declines.

This view, however, is problematic when one looks at the trends: depression started to rise in 2012 while suicide started to rise in 2008.

Haidt focuses heavily on 2012 being the approximate start of the crisis, a date that is closely tied to his arguments about social media and Gen Z. Haidt then downplays the discrepancy with suicide:

In 2010 there was little sign of any problem, in any of the long-running nationally representative datasets (with the possible exception of suicide for young teen boys). By 2015 […] teen mental health was a 5 alarm fire.

Actually, the suicide of girls aged 10-14 jumped by 70% within two years (2007-2009); and self-harm started to increase in 2010.

For girls aged 12-17, the 2011-2015 Major Depressive Episode increase in the graph given by Haidt is roughly 60% while the 2007-2011 increase in suicide for girls in this age group was roughly 65% — all before depression started to rise.

Why wait until 2015 to declare an alarm?

Suicide and Depression

The second problem is that Haidt seems to imply that rising suicide rates prove that depression is not rising simply due to the greater willingness of teens to admit symptoms of depression.

This is not, however, at all self-evident. After all, not only did suicide increase greatly before depression started to rise, but it also, after 2017, stagnated while depression increased massively.

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Conclusion

Haidt should clarify if he views suicide as an essential component of the mental health crisis that he intends to explain and if so then how the severe discrepancies between suicide and depression trends fit into his theory. He should also clarify if he is relying on suicide trends to prove that survey increases reflect real increases in depression.

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Notes:

Suicide stats are from the CDC WISQARS Fatal and Nonfatal Injury Reports: